Abby liked to think of herself as a strong person. The kind of girl who didn’t need to glom onto a boy just to feel valuable. In the past, she’d sometimes made fun of girls like Devon—occasionally even teased her best friend Bryn—for being “boy crazy.” In Abby’s opinion, that wasn’t simply a personal weakness—it was really lame. Yet, more and more lately she’d found herself thinking about Kent. Wanting to get to know him better. Longing to go out on a “real” date. What was up with that? Furthermore, what kind of hissy fit would her dad throw if he had any idea what was going through his only daughter’s mind? He would probably think she was “shallow” and “distracted” and “settling for less” and all sorts of other negative things.
She knew this was partly due to Dad’s childhood. Growing up African American in the inner city, where young men got sucked into gangs and drugs, and having a single mom who literally laid down her life to ensure that her son did better, well, Dad maintained some pretty high standards. And Abby understood that.
She’d always been proud of her academic-minded parents. She liked that they both taught college-level classes, that they were actively involved in the community and committed to their church. But sometimes the parental pressure to measure up—to succeed in everything—just got to her. Sometimes the idea of being just a regular girl with a regular boyfriend had a very strong, albeit secret, appeal.
“You’re being awfully quiet,” Bryn said as she parked the car in front of Costello’s. “Everything okay?”
Abby sighed as she reached for her bag. “Just thinking. And maybe I’m a little tired from practice.”
“Looked like the coach was working you girls hard,” Bryn said as they got out.
“Yeah. She always drives us hard at first.”
“You’re okay with that?”
“It’s just how it is.”
“I remember last year, after basketball season ended. You said you weren’t going to play this year. You said it was getting way too hard-core competitive. Remember?”
“I know. But it would crush my dad if I quit.”
“So you’re playing ball to please him?”
Abby shrugged. “Maybe.”
“You are such a devoted daughter,” Bryn teased. “My father should be so lucky.” She laughed.
“I happen to like basketball,” Abby said stubbornly. And it was true. She did like it—as a recreational sport or shooting hoops in the driveway. But Bryn was right too. The varsity team was getting too competitive to be much fun. It seemed like the girls played rougher and rougher each year. Still, she wasn’t ready to confess this to anyone. “Besides that, I don’t want to be a quitter,” she admitted.
Bryn put her arm around Abby’s shoulders. “I know. That’s a great quality. But are you sure it’s worth it?”
“It would kill my dad if I quit.”
“What if it kills you?”
Abby laughed. “That’s ridiculous. Besides, it keeps me fit.” She poked Bryn’s midsection. “Meanwhile, my friend, you are getting a bit flabby.”
“I am not.” Bryn gave Abby a playful shove as they went into Costello’s. “And to think I was going to treat you to coffee.”
Abby made a face as Bryn stepped up to order their pumpkin lattes. But when it came time to pay, Bryn wouldn’t let her. So Abby went over to the other girls, who were already seated at a table.
“Sorry to be late,” she told them. “Coach made us run laps at the end of practice.”
“Ugh.” Devon made a face. “I can’t believe you willingly go out for a sport like that, Abby. Are you nuts?”
“Some people think so.” Abby glanced up at Bryn as she joined them.
“We need to keep this meeting short and sweet,” Cassidy told them. “I have to be home by six.”
“Well, you called the meeting,” Bryn reminded her. “Go for it.”
“Okay.” Cassidy laid her iPad on the table. It was open to the MyPlace page with Felicia’s provocative photos. “Well, everyone has seen this, right?” She glanced at Abby.
“Yeah.” Abby frowned. “Pretty disgusting.”
“So, let’s put it to a vote. Anyone who still wants Felicia in the DG, raise your hand.”
No hands went up, but Emma scowled as if she was unhappy.
“Do you still want Felicia to be in the DG?” Abby asked curiously.
“No . . . ,” Emma said slowly. “But I still have a hard time believing she’d do something like this.”
“It’s right here.” Cassidy pointed to the iPad.
“Yeah, but you guys know as well as I do that some MyPlace pages are fakes. Sometimes other people put them up.”
“Why would anyone do that?” Bryn demanded.
“To hurt Felicia?” Emma suggested.
“Even so, how would you explain the way Felicia has been dressing?” Cassidy added. “You saw her.”
“Bad taste?” Emma shrugged.
“And how about the rumors circulating the school?” Devon asked.
“Mean girls?” Emma said meekly.
“Admit it, Em, whatever is going on with Felicia, it’s not good.” Cassidy closed the iPad as the barista brought some of the coffees to the table.
“So we all agree then?” Devon asked after the barista left. “Felicia is out of the running?”
Everyone nodded in agreement, quietly sipping their coffees.
“Does that mean we’re going to give up on the double-date plan?” Abby asked. “Because I happen to think it’s a great idea. I’ve really been looking forward to it.”
“I actually thought we might do it for the Christmas ball,” Bryn said.
“Isn’t that a long ways off?” Devon complained.
“It’s about a month out,” Bryn explained.
“Can’t we plan something sooner?” Devon begged them. “That’s a long time to wait for a date.”
“Have you forgotten the mess you made of our last big date?” Emma said sternly. “We all probably need a month to recover.”
Devon glared at her.
“I don’t mind waiting until the Christmas ball,” Abby said. “I’m pretty busy with basketball right now.”
“And this gives us time to set up some good dates,” Bryn pointed out. “I, for one, want to go with a guy that I really want to go out with. If you get what I mean.”
“It might be cool if we got the guys to ask us out this time,” Emma added.
“I agree,” Bryn declared, “although that could be a challenge.”
“And November is going to be busy enough,” Cassidy told them. “Between midterms, the school’s fall fund-raiser, and Thanksgiving, December isn’t really that far off.”
Devon didn’t look overly pleased at this plan, but Emma’s words seemed to have shut her up.
“Should we write down which guys we want to go with?” Abby asked hopefully. “Just so there’s no misunderstanding between girls?”
“Does everyone know?” Cassidy asked.
“I do,” Abby declared. “I’ve got my eye on Kent again.”
Cassidy wrote this down.
“And I’d like to go with Isaac again,” Emma said a bit shyly. “I mean, if he wants to go with me. I think he might.”
“Anyone else have a guy in mind?” Cassidy asked.
“Not really,” Bryn told her. “I’m glad I’ll have plenty of time to look around.”
“I can think of several guys,” Devon said, “but I don’t want to commit to anything yet.”
“I, uh, I might try to see if Lane’s interested,” Cassidy said with some uncertainty.
“If he’s not interested in you, maybe he’ll be interested in me.” Devon said this with a mischievous glint in her eye.
“Devon,” Emma said in a warning tone. “That’s not very nice.”
Cassidy looked slightly blindsided, but just shrugged. “Well, I guess that’s okay,” she told Devon. “If Lane’s not into me, it’s not like I can do anything about it.”
“It’s still rude,” Emma protested. “What about the DG rules? We’re not supposed to steal anyone’s boyfriend. Remember?”
“Lane is not Cassidy’s boyfriend,” Devon clarified.
“That’s true,” Cassidy said.
“Even so, Cassidy has stated that she’d like to go to the Christmas ball with him,” Bryn interjected. “We need to respect that, Devon.”
Devon winked at her. “I was just jerking her chain anyway. I have no intention of going after Lane.”
“So, back to the double date thing,” Abby said. “There are five of us. Either we do a double date and a triple date or we need to find another DG member.”
“I have an idea,” Bryn said suddenly.
Everyone looked expectantly at Bryn.
“Who?” Devon asked.
“Amanda Norton,” Bryn announced.
“Amanda Norton?” Emma frowned. “She’s so stuck up.”
“She’s really pretty,” Devon said.
“She’s actually rather nice,’ Bryn told them. “She even agreed to help me with the Christmas ball.”
“What about her college boyfriend?” Cassidy questioned.
“Apparently they’re history,” Bryn said.
“But Amanda Norton?” Emma still looked skeptical. “She probably wouldn’t even want to be part of the DG.”
“Don’t be so sure,” Bryn said.
“Would she agree to the rules?” Cassidy asked.
“I don’t know why not.”
“What about her friends?” Cassidy said. “If Amanda joins, Tristin and Sienna might want to join too.”
“We don’t want them in the DG,” Emma declared.
“Why not?” Devon demanded. “I like them. And that would make eight girls in the DG. If you ask me, that would be a lot more fun.”
“I don’t see anything wrong with the DG growing,” Bryn told them. “As long as the girls all agree to the rules.”
They discussed and argued about this until Cassidy pointed out the time. “I want to make a motion,” she said as she shoved her iPad into her bag. “I move that Bryn should talk to Amanda. She should find out if she’s even interested in joining the DG. All in favor, say aye.”
They all agreed, but Abby could tell by Bryn’s expression that she wasn’t satisfied.
“What’s wrong?” Abby demanded.
“It’s just that it’ll be a little awkward, you know? Asking Amanda if she’s interested and—so she says yeah and then I just leaving her hanging? How rude is that? I mean, if she’s game—and that’s probably a long shot—why can’t we just invite her to join us?”
They discussed this briefly, finally agreeing that it made sense. Abby made the motion this time, they all voted, and it was unanimous. The meeting was adjourned.
“Oh, one more thing,” Bryn said as they were gathering their stuff to leave. “I need you guys to be on the Christmas ball committee. Can I sign you all up?”
“Not me,” Abby told her. “I’m too busy with basketball.”
Bryn gave Abby a reluctant nod. “Okay, I’ll let you off this time. But the rest of you?”
As they were leaving Costello’s, Bryn told them all the reasons they should be on the committee, and by the time they got outside, she’d gotten Cass, Em, and Devon signed up.
“You’re pretty persuasive,” Abby told Bryn as they got back in her car. “Maybe you should go into politics.”
Bryn laughed as she started the car. “Maybe I will.”
“I wanted to ask if we could specify who we want to go on our double dates with,” Abby said as Bryn pulled out.
“I thought you already took care of that,” Bryn said in a teasing tone. “We all know you’re crushing on Kent, Abs. No competition there.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Abby said a bit tersely. “I meant which other couple.”
“Oh.” Bryn nodded. “You think we should have that set up too?”
“Maybe.” Abby wasn’t so sure anymore. At first she’d wanted to double with Bryn, but now she was having doubts.
“You want to double with me and my guy?” Bryn asked hopefully.
“I guess.”
“You guess?” Bryn sounded hurt. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing. Of course, I want to go with you and your date, silly.” But even as Abby said this, she was having second thoughts.
Bryn laughed. “Okay then. We’ll tell the others tomorrow.”
“I’m glad we have plenty of time to get our dates lined up,” Abby told her. “I’m not sure how we’ll get the guys to do the asking this time. Do you have any ideas?”
“We’ll just have to start working on them,” Bryn said with confidence. “We’ll start dropping lots of clues and—hey—I’ve just come up with what might be a brilliant plan.”
“What is it?”
Bryn’s forehead creased as she drove down Main Street. “Okay, it’s still kind of congealing in my head. It would be sort of like a campaign to promote the Christmas ball, you know?”
“Not really.”
“A way to get the guys all enthused and buying tickets and making plans to go.”
“How do you intend to do that?”
“By making it some kind of competition. You know how guys like to compete over everything. So there would be some kind of prize. Maybe we’d get some business to donate it. We’d have posters up all over the school to promote it. That way a girl could point to a poster—you know, while having a conversation with her main crush—and she could sort of challenge him. Does this make any sense?”
“Not really.”
“I know.” Bryn nodded. “It’s pretty half-hatched, I’ll admit it. I do think I could be onto something, though.”
“Okay.” Abby was trying to be a good sport and play along. “Your idea of a prize—what kind of prize would it be? It probably needs to be big in order to get the kind of attention you’re talking about. Would it be like a car or a—”
“No way. Who would donate a car?”
“I’m just saying. If you want to get people on board, you have to make it worthwhile.”
“I get that, but a car would be impossible.”
“Motorcycle?”
“Get real.” Bryn laughed. “A skateboard is more likely.”
“Right. I can just see those boys jumping through the hoops to get a skateboard, Bryn.”
“I know, but how could we possibly get a bigger prize?”
Abby thought hard. “What if the competition was some kind of fund-raiser?”
“November is fund-raising month for the school.”
“Yeah.” Abby’s parents were always involved in some kind of fund-raiser. “But that’s just to raise money for Northwood. What if we were raising money for something else? Something more charitable, you know? After all, Christmas is around the corner. What if it was something connected to helping the needy at Christmas? Maybe children in the community.”
“Wow, Abs, I like how you think. I feel like we’re getting close on this.”
They were already at Abby’s house. “Let’s both keep noodling on it,” Abby told Bryn as she got out of the car. “In fact, I’ll ask my parents for some suggestions. They might really get into something like this.” She waved good-bye and hurried through the raindrops that were starting to pelt down. Getting involved in a fund-raiser might have even more benefits than she’d considered initially. Perhaps she could use working on a fund-raiser as an excuse to cut basketball out of her already busy schedule. It might be worth a shot.